and veterans and all of north texans. that's what tom worked hard for was creating a better way of life for everybody. so with that, mr. speaker, i would give my condolences to the carlin family and all of his union brothers and sisters and everybody in north texas because people will miss tom carlin and his big irish smile and just friendliness that he always brought to the table. with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields. pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until noon today. for undocumented immigrants

living there. they'll also be working on a measure that will provide presidential candidates with the same level of secret service protection as the president. on wednesday, the house voted down the republican measure that would have extended government funding for another six months past the september 30 deadline. we'll bring you live coverage of the house when members return here on c-span. and we stay on capitol hill to take you live now to a house energy and commerce subcommittee hearing on the biden administration's environmental protection agency policies. >> at my confirmation hearing not many years ago, i reflected on this notion that justice holmes said that we are expected to cut square corners in dealing with the government. mr. o'donnell: i think it's very important that the e.p.a. ensure that everyone who comes to them is cutting those square corners because they're really getting the benefit of the american taxpayer dollar.

mr. balderson: doesn't this mean that in some cases the funding would have already been distributed to the recipient by the time the e.p.a. detects a problem? mr. o'connell: it could. mr. balderson: thank you very much. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> that the yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. peters, for five minutes of questioning. mr. peters: thank you, mr. chairman. we do need robust oversight to ensure that when congress creates programs, they can make sure every dollar is spent in the way we intended. the problem i have with today's hearing that s that in some respects the majority isn't walking the walk. every time mr. o'donnell expresses the need for funding for proper oversight, which he has at three hearings now, the majority introduces a dead on arrival funding bill that does not include the necessary fund for that oversight. this will not ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent properly and it's not going to get money into mr. o'donnell's office. mr. inspector general, it is my understanding that e.p.a.'s f.y. 2025 budget request called for

an additional $20 million for your office. is that your understanding? >> yes. mr. peters: does the latest c.r. from house republicans include those additional funds to meet the budgetary needs? >> i haven't seen them. mr. peters: the answer is no. that's my problem with today's hearing. i think oversight is a bipartisan issue. we can and should work together to make sure we aren't raising taxpayer dollars. i talked to you also about something we might agree on in terms of getting the benefit out of i.r.a. and the infrastructure bill which is permanent reform to make things go faster, avoid delays. that's not specifically your issue but it is one of the concerns i have about waste. in deploying these bills. which i think are worthy efforts. but i'd appreciate the opportunity to work in a bipartisan way to fully fund the o.i.g. it doesn't have to be partisan. this hearing is not about the needs of o.i.g. and it isn't about oversight, it's just another opportunity for the majority to highlight programs

they don't like and problems that we have a tough time solving together. without evidence of waste, fraud or abuse to back up those complaints and i think we should focus on funding the government, meeting all of our obligations to the american people, and we should work to conduct real oversight and stop waste, fraud and abuse in every form. i'd love to support your office and the funding you need to do your part. with that, i yield back. mr. carter: the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from indiana, representative pence, for five minutes of questioning. mr. pence: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, ranking member tonko, and thank you, administer, for appearing here today. back in a former life i was chief deputy commissioner of the indiana department of environmental management. so -- and that was a long time ago. and the dollars were much, much less than they are now. i've been raising alarms about the impacts of this administration's rush to our

industry. i've hosted probably about eight round tables back in indiana. i have the state of indiana sitting there, utilities, research universities, purdue, parking and mobility experts around charging station developers that have told me about lessons learned, where they were at, the grants they were applying for, the moneys that the state has received. in these round tables i've recently heard some troubling stories about the current state of the green transition. i'll get into that in a second. recently the governor of indiana said, let's invest in innovation, let's not set goals that are out of reach. i'll continue to advocate for more investment like we're doing here in the state of indiana to embrace alternative resources. so we're pro-moving forward with all of the above. in your written testimony, and i quote, you said in my previous testimony, i've warned of some

of the risks of massive influx of resources and just a second ago, chairman carter asked you how it's going on the follow-up and seeing how this money is used and then when i walked in here, you said something, and i really didn't hear it, but i think the gist was, you're operating at a loss because the demand is far -- far exceeds what you're supposed to inspect, regulate, oversee. i'm here to share with you today that the state of indiana, they got enormous sums of money in 2021 and they're just -- they can't do it. they can't do it because of the delays in permitting, the delays in how you actually can qualify for deploying the funds. there are companies that have set up, they're ready to do these things regardless of what

it is, develop alternative -- i have heavy fought toy engine companies in my town which the e.p.a. has been very generous with. but moving forward with the science and the implementation, just seems to be tremendously bogged down and yet the dollars are out there. am i misunderstanding something? is that correct? mr. o'donnell: i'm not sure how much money the e.p.a. has spent with respect to that. i believe it's 10% to 20%. but it's such an enormous amount of money. mr. pence: and would you agree that it's actually not being deployed the way the intention of whatever the grant was, would you agree with that? o'donnell: i think we found that in our capacity review of new mexico. that they had financial capacity issues that are not allowing them to move the money out the

way they were expecting to. peps pence sometimes, -- mr. pence: sometimes, whether it's a state or a balance sheet of company, are they just deploying it on their balance sheet to make them look a little better, you know what i'm saying by that? i'm a little suspicious of that. mr. o'donnell: that is something we definitely look at as well. it is a common flawed technique, grant recipients. mr. pence: i'm going to yield some time back to the chairman. mr. carter: again, i asked you earlier about how far down the line you followed the money. and i'm just not comfortable with the answer yet. i mean, do you follow it? to it's spent? we've had a problem across the board, not just with e.p.a., but other agencies as well, where we give these grants and then they

give subgrants. and we don't know what they're being used for. mr. o'donnell: yes. so i think maybe in the past my office has not, has taken a more restrictive view. my view is that we follow every dollar until it's spent. that includes not just to the subrecipients but to the subrecipient's contractors. these are things we speak about when we talk about the need for audit and better data in order to know if there's, for example, bid rigging or collusion. so we will follow every dollar until it is spent. mr. carter: i know you can't speak for other i.g.'s, but is that the normal practice of i.g.'s? mr. o'donnell: i can't speak for everyone. when i was at the department of justice, i would work with some o.i.g.'s, we would follow the dollars all the way to the end. mr. carter: ok. all right. the gentleman yields back. and the chair now recognizes the

gentleman from texas, representative crenshaw, for five minutes of questioning. mr. crenshaw: thank you to the chair. thank you for helping me out as i run from another committee. mr. o'donnell, we're obviously very worried about the e.p.a.'s management of roughly $100 billion in u.s. taxpayer funds received through the infrastructure investment and jobs act and the deceptively labeled inflation reduction act. of all the dubious programs, and there are many, one of the most concerning is the $30 billion for the e.p.a. greenhouse gas reduction fund and environmental justice block grant which is funnels taxpayer funding directly to radical environmental groups and shockingly, i say that with extreme sarcasm, some of these pass-throughs who are receiving i.r.a. funding have direct ties to other organizations such as the indigenous environmental network, which was responsible for the violence and illegal protests of the dakota access pipeline.

moreover, many of these awarded i.r.a. funds are directly connected to the biden-harris administration or other democrat organizations. one example is david hayes, a form special assistant to the president who now sits on the board of the coalition for green capital which received $5 billion in taxpayer money. it's hard not to read that and -- it's hard to read that and not be infuriated by what seems to be just overt corporate cronyism. and then we have to ask ourselves, what tangible benefits do americans actually get for any of this? if you can tell me that we're going to get decades of reliable, abundant energy, clean, emission-free energy, at a low cost, then, you know what, that wouldn't be a terrible investment. but i'd say we're definitely not getting that. a lot of people are getting rich but we're not getting that. these nonprofit groups are going to help prevent climate change, make our weather better, improve the environment, but the truth

is the e.p.a. has little to any safeguards to ensure that this money is even spent appropriately. i have to point out, if we were serious about reducing climate change, and we had to spend $100 billion on it, i think we would direct that money to reduce emissions by providing base load power like new nuclear plants. it's unclear how much more giga watts of energy we could build with $100 billion, maybe 10, whatever the number is, it's definitely more than what we're going to be creating with all of these pass-through programs. and that's assuming that solar energy actually worked all the time. of course it doesn't. because at night it just doesn't work. it's intermittent energy. so this is a very nonpragmatic approach to clean energy. pointed that out a million times on this committee. i appreciate the work you all are doing at your office. but without additional oversight, these funds just

can't be efficiently managed. and based on your testimony, i think i'm concerned about the culture at the e.p.a. which seems to be pretty resistant to transparency overall. i'll just ask you a general question in our limited time here. you've highlighted the unprecedented funding knowing through new programs created by the inflation reduction act. has the agency done enough to ensure that funds distributed through the greenhouse gas reduction fund are managed responsibly? are you funded to do that? mr. o'donnell: we are not funded to do that. the e.p.a. has given us what they call gold standard meetings. we have met with them. i know that the agency is concerned about this. they have stated their concern. but they've also said they're reliant on us to make sure that they're relying on the o.i.g. to make sure these funds are expended appropriately, knowing with aren't fund -- we aren't funded to do that. mr. crenshaw: what mechanisms do you have to actually look at

subcontracting? i've seen a list of contractors which are just -- which are groups of nonprofits that then get to spend the money how they see fit in many cases. do you have the ability to audit some of these subcontracts? mr. o'donnell: yes, we can do that. mr. crenshaw: you just said you're not funded to do that. mr. o'donnell: we can. we have the authority to do it. do we have the capacity to do it? no. mr. crenshaw: ok. how much money would that take? they've put $100 billion into this but they didn't put a dime into additional oversight for it. how much money would it take -- mr. o'donnell: i believe as we've said before, a fraction of a penny for every dollar the e.p.a. sends out would be stuff for us -- sufficient for us. mr. crenshaw: there's a lot of dollars sent out. that's a lot of pennies. do you have concerns about potential taxpayer funding going to chinese solar component manufacturer, even though it's said they should be american-made, but the reality is the supply chain is largely held up by china? mr. o'donnell: we have an

abiding concern about the buy america provisions across the board, including with respect to solar. mr. crenshaw: because? why do you have a concern about that? mr. o'donnell: in part -- for me it's always because there's a law that requires that these things be purchased from american sources. there are of course concerns, national security concerns with respect to certain countries that manufacture it. mr. crenshaw: i understand but what are your concerns -- mr. o'donnell: our concern is that the e.p.a.'s guidance an oversight is quite poor. if you talk to stakeholders, they find the guidance so nebulous that they're not -- they are deeply concerned that they are not complying with the requirements. there's enough gray area in the guidance for people to come in and make money or to take over that industry where they themselves have been pretty fast i hadious in trying to meet the spirit of it.

that's an example of where we have a concern. ultimately we're the ones who will have to bring these cases to the department of justice to prosecute. mr. crenshaw: understood. i yield back. thank you. mr. carter: the gentleman yields. that concludes all of the questions that we have right now from members. mr. o'donnell, thank you. i ask unanimous consent to insert into the record the documents included on the staff hearing documents list. without objection, that will be the order. i remind members that they have 0 business days to -- 10 business days to submit questions for the record and i ask the witness to respond to the questions promptly. without objection, the subcommittee is adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2024] >> today army officials testify on the oversight of training policies noant combat extremist

-- meant to combat extremist activities amongst army persone. watch the subcommittee hearing live at 1:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we're funded by these television companies and more. including wow! >> the world has changed. today a fast, reliable internet connection is something no one can live without. so wow! is there for our customers with speed, reliability, value and choice. now more than ever, it all starts with great internet. >> wow! >> wow! supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. " continues. host: conversation on the war in gaza, our guest is annelle sheline.